


we're running against the wind

by Origamidragons



Series: i'll fly away [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Backstory, Gen, Mugiwara no Ichimi | Straw Hat Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24749707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons
Summary: “You’re lucky, Zoro,” Kuina said, looking up at him with a terribly sad half-smile on her face that he never, ever wanted to see again. “Someday, you’re going tofly.”On eight pirates, and their histories, and their wings (or lack thereof).
Series: i'll fly away [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738525
Comments: 23
Kudos: 275





	we're running against the wind

“I can’t fly,” Kuina told him, one warm and dusky night, sitting on the porch step and staring down at the grass. Arms wrapped around bony knees, bruised and grass-stained. “Did you know that?”

Zoro blinked, and sat down beside her, baffled for a moment. “What do you mean? Cause your wings haven’t grown out yet?”

She sighed, heavy and tired, and stretched one wing out at her side. It was simple, plain black, small for her age. “You know what a rail is?”

“A rail?”

“It’s a kind of bird. The kind I am. They live on the ground,” Kuina said, staring down at the grass between her scuffed shoes. “They don’t fly. They’re no good for it. Their wings are too small. Even if they try, they can never get too far off the ground.”

She shot him a sideways look, and halfheartedly tugged on one of his feathers. His wings were still growing, but already much larger than hers, big and brown, almost gold in the sunlight. Eagle wings. Wings meant to soar.

“You’re lucky, Zoro,” she said, looking up at him with a terribly sad half-smile on her face that he never, ever wanted to see again. “Someday, you’re going to _fly._ ”

Zoro woke up with her voice still ringing in her head.

Consciousness hit him with an unpleasant jolt, and he had half a second to process the dusty courtyard- _not_ Shimotsuki dojo- before a half-dozen different varieties of discomfort hit him all at once.

The hunger pains were practically screaming in the back of his mind, and he was parched from dehydration. He was half-numb from the ropes digging into his skin, cutting off blood circulation. He shifted, trying to prop himself up as best he could, and grit his teeth against the sharp, stabbing pain of blood starting to flow again.

As soon as he moved, his wings pulsed with pain, and he had to bite back a yell. They’d been lashed roughly to the pole at his back at an uncomfortable angle that had started as barely tolerable and progressed, over the course of the days, to maddening. The dusty ground all around him was scattered with fallen dusty gold feathers, both those that had been pulled loose by the ropes and those that had shed on their own as starvation had taken its toll.

It was fine, though. What was a few feathers lost? It wasn’t like he was going to die here. It wasn’t like he could.

He had a promise to keep, after all.

* * *

Arlong never clipped Nami’s wings. They were too useful for quick getaways. To him, they were just some of the features that made her such a valuable tool, such a clever, profitable little thief. So, no, he never damaged her wings.

But he loved to remind her that he _could_.

If she disobeyed, if she tried to run away- well, fishmen were so strong, and wings were so fragile. She learned to bear the fear, though she always kept her wings folded close and tight to her back whenever she walked through Arlong Park. If there was one thing she could be grateful for, at least, it was that he never thought to threaten to hurt _Nojiko’s_ wings instead.

She could still hear the crunch of Bellemere’s wingbones when Arlong had stomped on them.

Fishmen didn’t have wings. It made sense- what use would undersea creatures have for them? But she couldn’t help but suspect, every now and then, that Arlong was envious. He could rule their towns and beat them into the ground and proclaim himself and his brethren superior over humans in every way- but he would never, ever fly. That was something Nami would always hold over him.

Nami’s wings were simple at first glance- black, with splotches of bright white at the shoulders and tips- but under the sunlight, the black _glittered_ , turning to dark iridescent bluish-green. They looked nothing like Bellemere’s wide, long-feathered osprey wings had.

“Would you cut it out?” she snapped, one wing stretching out to swat Luffy’s curious hands away from the straw hat resting in her lap.

She’d known him for more than a day now, but she still couldn’t really make up her mind on her temporary captain. He was annoying, but good-hearted, but stupid, but honest- and she’d never seen wings like his either. They were bright red and featherless, looking more bat than bird. Overall, he was a frustrating enigma, for how open he was.

Not that it mattered, really. She’d be parting ways with them soon enough.

“Are you done yet?” he asked insistently, leaning around her shoulder to peer at the mostly-repaired hat cradled in her hands. The wide, ugly knife cuts Buggy had left in the golden straw were mostly hidden now, though you could still see the scars if you knew to look- the replacement straw she’d had to use in places was brighter and cleaner than the worn, aged material of the rest of the hat.

She wondered idly just how old this stupid hat was. There were other repairs worked into the straw here and there, some more recent and some much older, hand-stitched with varying levels of neatness and expertise.

“ _Nearly_ ,” she said, not for the first time. “Be patient.”

The sun caught on the mended straw, and all of a sudden she remembered a question she’d wanted to ask. “Hey, Luffy,” she said before his attention could drift. “What’s with this feather?”

She’d noticed it when they’d first met, and wondered at it. It was tucked into the red ribbon that ran around the hat, and when she’d taken the hat to repair it and gotten a closer look, she’d noticed that it was carefully stitched into place. It was striped black and sapphire blue, with a tiny splash of white at the tip.

“Oh!” Luffy said. “That’s Sabo’s!”

Nami blinked. “Sabo?” she repeated.

“My brother!” Luffy said.

Zoro blinked one eye open from where he’d been napping on one of the little boat’s benches, lifting his head. “You’ve got a brother?” he asked.

“There’s _more_ of you?” Nami said at the same time.

Luffy snickered. “I’ve got two big brothers!” he explained. “They both set out to sea before me, though. Sabo first, and then Ace second. Sabo had bluejay wings. Yours kinda remind me of them, Nami!”

 _Had_ , Nami thought, and thought of Nojiko- solid blue wings, tipped with black. Thought about the osprey feather tucked away in the very back of her dresser in Cocoyashi. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Luffy said. “They’re really pretty! And glittery and blue, like the ocean!”

“Oh,” Nami said. “...Thanks.”

...So maybe she liked her temporary captain, just a little. It wouldn’t change anything, in the end.

* * *

Usopp lied about his wings. He kept them tucked close to his back, and whenever someone asked, he’d come up with a new species, something big and intimidating. Hawk, eagle, falcon- something flashy, impressive, worthy of a brave warrior of the sea.

Of course, none of those were true. (Nothing he said ever was.) Everyone in the village knew it, too- they’d known him since he was a kid, after all. The truth he never wanted to admit was that his wings were unremarkable, just like him. Plain black, medium size, with a thick stripe of white running through the middle of each. He only ever opened them when he was with his friends, or with Kaya.

The first time she’d seen his wings was when he threw his arms open too wide when telling a story, caught up in the fantasy inside his head, and unbalanced himself from his perch on the tree outside her window. They’d snapped open on instinct to break his fall and let him catch himself midair, and he’d flapped back up to her window to see her beaming.

“Look,” she’d said, and stretched her own wings open- big beautiful crane wings, wide and white but with a thick band of black on the inside of each. Just the opposite of his. “We match!”

Over time, Kaya’s sickness had taken its toll on her wings, just as on the rest of her. She was always shedding drifts of feathers, leaving her wings looking scrawny and patchy. They were beautiful nonetheless, though, wide and graceful, the surviving feathers bright white.

“Someday,” he told her, “We’ll go flying, once you’re better and your feathers grow back. And I’ll show you the island where everything is made out of candy, and the trees talk to you!”

She laughed into her hands, wings curling around her. “Do they?”

“They do!” Usopp confirmed, nodding emphatically. “And they sing, too. But only for kind-hearted girls with white wings. So if we went there, they’d sing for you for sure!”

She smiled, big and warm and honest. “That sounds lovely, Usopp!”

Usopp grinned back.

A couple days later, the pirates came.

And it was sudden and violent and _terrifying_ , and Klahadore’s massive black vulture wings seemed to block out the sky, and Usopp was sure a dozen times over that he was going to die, but-

But he didn’t.

By the time it was all over and it was time to set sail, Kaya’s wings were already looking healthier.

* * *

“Kid,” the old man had said, the first day on the rock, voice gruff and thick from coughing up seawater. “You still alive?”

Sanji didn’t say anything, pulling skinny knees to his chest and glaring over the top of them at the old man’s back. The old man had a long piece of driftwood balanced over his knees, and was methodically shredding his shirt into long strips. One of his wings was awkwardly bent in a way that made Sanji cringe to look at. The pain must have been terrible, but the old man’s voice didn’t even shake.

“C’mere. I need your help with something.”

Sanji didn’t move. “What?” he asked, and almost winced at the croak of his own voice.

“Can’t reach my wing. Busted it against the rocks, and if I don’t set it now it won’t heal right.”

“So?” Sanji muttered sullenly. “What do I care?”

“You stupid, brat?” the old man asked tiredly, and didn’t even give Sanji time to bristle before he continued, “Your wings ain’t big enough to reach land yet, but you’re little enough to carry. If my wing heals right, I can get us both off this rock. Hopefully before we starve to death.”

“...How do I know you won’t leave me?” Sanji had asked suspiciously.

The old man looked at him askance over his shoulder, holding himself stiffly so as not to jar his injured wing. “Shit, kid, I might be a pirate, but I’m not a _monster_. You think I’d just ditch a little kid to die?”

Sani blinked. _Oh_.

(It had made Judge so, so angry, that Sanji was the only one of his brothers with wings. It was an embarrassment, an infuriation, that the _failure_ could fly unassisted when the perfect sons could not. It was why he’d been locked away, in a cell where he could never see the sky, where there was no hope at all of flight.)

He inched his way across the craggy stone to the old man, lips pressed tight. He took the stick of driftwood and makeshift bandages and quietly set to work, following the old man’s terse instructions. He wasn’t used to being on this end of it. Normally it was Reiju bandaging his injuries, setting his sprains and broken bones.

(“You deserve to _fly_ ,” she’d said through desperate tears as she shoved him towards the ship, grey-and-violet wings pulled close to her back. “ _Go!_ ”)

One he had the last clumsy knot tied, the old man gave him some of the food- so _little_ \- and they split to wait. For the old man’s broken bones to heal, or for a ship to come. Whichever came first.

And they’d waited, and waited, and waited.

After the third week, Sanji had started to lose feathers. After the makeshift shelter he’d managed to scrounge together fell apart, his wings provided the only protection from the elements. He huddled behind their shade as the weeks crawled by, agonizingly slowly.

Fallen black and white feathers littered the stone around him by the time desperation drove him to curl shaking fingers around a knife, and drag himself to the other side of the island, and discover the terrible truth. The knife clattered to the stone, and Sanji collapsed along with it.

It was twenty more days before the old man was well enough to fly. Sanji was half-unconscious with delirium by then, and all he knew of the flight was hunger, and wind, and endless, _endless_ blue. The ocean below, and the cloudless sky above, and nothing at all between.

It never did quite leave his mind.

“Have you ever heard,” he said, leaning against the railing and turning to look at the idiot in the straw hat, “of the All Blue?”

* * *

Chopper had never had wings.

It was just another reason he knew he’d never fit in. No matter how human he could make himself look, he would never have wings, and that would always give him away.

He did know how to treat them, though. Of course he did. A great doctor needed to know those sorts of things. Doctorine had taught him- about wing breaks and sprains, the sort of injuries that could be crippling and the ones where the patient might fly again, her own grey parrot wings flaring dramatically whenever she made a point.

At the moment, Doctorine was leaning over the unconscious bodies of their three newest patients- the blonde man with the back injury, the girl with the fever, and the black-haired boy.

“Let’s see here,” she hummed. “Secretarybird, common magpie, and- _hm_.”

Chopper blinked up at her, intrigued by her sudden silence. Her expression was hard to read. “Doctorine? Is it about that boy’s wings? I saw they were different, and he hasn’t got feathers, is that normal for humans? Is he sick?”

“Not normal,” she agreed absently. “But not unprecedented, either.” She chuckled. “It’s been some time since I last met a D.”

“A… huh?”

Doctorine waved it off. “Oh, nothing. Get him to a warm room and then prep Mr. Secretarybird there for surgery, will you? I need to find the antibiotics for Miss Magpie, she’s the most urgent of the three.”

“Ah- yes, Doctorine!” Chopper agreed, and bounced into action, and questions about feathers and wings and Ds were quickly forgotten.

* * *

Franky didn’t have wings.

He had had, at one point, though he’d never really cared much about them either way. After all, Tom-san hadn’t had wings, and neither had Kokoro. And it wasn’t like they were any use for shipbuilding, and he didn’t have many places to fly to, anyways.

Iceberg had taught him how to fly, even though he’d always insisted he didn’t need Iceberg to teach him _anything_. But it had been useful for getting up to high places that needed construction, or making a quick getaway after breaking something, and- yeah, okay, he could admit it. It was fun. Flying had been fun.

And then there had been the sea train. And wings were so very fragile.

By the time he hauled himself aboard the scrap ship with broken hands, he already knew he wouldn’t fly ever again. His wings were wrecked beyond any dream of repair, skin shredded and bones shattered into fragments. Even if he had the ability to create prosthetics lightweight and detailed enough to replace them- which, not to sell himself short, he probably could, given time and materials that he didn’t have- he never would have been able to attach them to the nerves properly, not at that angle.

No, better just to amputate, and cauterize, and focus on the things he did need: his hands, his eyes, his organs.

And he’d gone on, and it had been fine, and most of the time he barely missed flying at all.

“Look,” he said, as the Agua Laguna raged outside and the dumb pirate kid _refused to listen to reason_. “Listen to me, bro. I’m serious. You listening?”

The kid didn’t answer, but he did pause in hammering away at his dead ship for a moment, which Franky decided to take as a yes.

“Your ship’s crippled,” Franky said bluntly. “She _can’t_ sail anymore. It’s like- okay, you saw my wings are gone, right?”

“...Yeah.”

“Taking that ship to sea,” Franky said, “would be like pushing me off a cliff. There was a time I could’ve survived that just fine, but now it’d smash me to pieces. Your ship’s lost her wings. And no matter what, you can’t fix that.”

The kid stared at him, biting his lip so hard it looked like it might bleed, something cracking in his eyes, black and white wings curling protectively around his shoulders. Franky felt for him, he really did- he knew better than most what it felt like to fight something you couldn’t possibly win to try and save something you loved- but truth was truth, even when it hurt.

He was just starting to hope he might have _finally_ gotten through when the door crashed open and suddenly, they all had bigger problems to worry about.

* * *

Robin’s wings were nondescript. It was useful, in its way, when it came to living in hiding. From the slanderous stories told about her and the people of Ohara, people expected crow, raven, rook- something dark and threatening. Or even featherless demon wings, much like those of her new captain.

Instead, her wings were simple, uniform dark grey with tawny orange-brown patches spreading from the shoulders. Robin wings.

Her mother’s had been similarly simple, she remembered. It was one of the only details that had stuck in her head about Nico Olvia, as the long years had worn away at the few memories of her mother she had. Most of her mother’s face was a blur, now, but she still remembered a few things: white hair, sad eyes, wings of a mourning dove.

As Spandam dragged her down the Bridge of Hesitation, hands and powers bound, she flapped her wings frantically as hard as she could, even as the chains around her shoulders to weigh her down and stop her flying broke feathers and gouged at skin with every movement. She didn’t even need lift, just to push herself backwards a meter, a foot, an _inch_ -

If she could buy even a minute, even a _second_ -

Spandam spat an ugly word at her as he was jerked backwards, stumbling for a moment and nearly face-planting onto the bridge before he managed to find his balance. He snarled, grabbed her by the shoulder and hurled her to the ground, driving the air from her lungs with a painful gasp.

He stomped down hard between her shoulder blades, pinning her down.

“You know,” he said, sounding almost gleeful, “the Tenryuubito cut off the wings of their slaves. To be sure they’ll never escape. Maybe I’ll recommend that, as part of your judgement. Or…”

He moved his shoe from the center of her back to press lightly down on one of the delicate joints in her right wing, and her breath caught.

“Or _maybe_ I’ll just do it myself,” he said. “What do you think, Nico Robin?”

Nico Olvia, with white hair and sad eyes and mourning-dove wings that had been bloodied, perforated by rifle-shots, ruined to stop her from flying away-

They’d aimed for the wings, first. They’d wanted to be sure that not a single scholar could escape. Not one was left unmaimed by the time the marines evacuated the burning wreck of Ohara.

(Except Robin.)

“It’s not like you’ll be flying ever again, where you’re going,” Spandam continued, starting to press down, and Robin closed her eyes and grit her teeth against the pain and the rising plea for mercy alike. She refused to beg. Her mother had fought to the end, and so would she.

Then there was a blaze of light, and a crash, and a fireball caught Spandam perfectly in the head, and Robin was saved.

(Though, perhaps, if she was honest with herself, she’d been saved a very long time ago.)

* * *

When Brook had been alive, his wings had been soft, plain uniform brown.

 _Nightingale_ , Yorki had laughed, one late night when they were sorting through a wing glossary one of the crewmen had picked up on the latest island, trying to place everyone’s wings. _Oi, Brook, no wonder you’ve got the best singing voice on the ship_.

Brook had warbled out a few notes in response, as horrifically flat and off-pitch as he could physically manage, and Yorki had nearly cracked a rib laughing.

But wings rotted away just like all other flesh, and by the time Brook crawled his way back to the world of the living, they were nothing but bones and a drift of soft brown feathers, shed on the rotting planks, some of them already beginning to decompose. He tucked a few of the feathers away in an inside pocket of his coat, just in case they helped Laboon to recognize him, someday.

Catching the remnants of his wings in the corners of his eyes (ah, but he didn’t have those anymore-), grasping and skeletal, always caught him off guard, almost worse than catching sight of his reflection. The bare, bright white stood in such contrast to the soft brown he was so used to seeing that he thought he would never truly get used to it. He couldn’t imagine anyone else would, either.

And then-

“Your wings are _awesome_ , Brook!” Luffy said, bright and enthusiastic and entirely sincere, sprawled on his back on the piano. His wings were splayed out beneath him- featherless and red, entirely unlike any Brook had never seen before. “They’re so cool!”

For a moment, Brook couldn’t find words. (How unsuiting, for a songsmith.) And then he said, “Why, thank you, Luffy-san. I should tell you, though… I’m afraid they’re not good for much. I can no longer fly.”

Luffy blinked, and then said, “So? I can’t, neither.”

“...You can’t?”

Luffy snickered, grinning. “Nah! My wings only sorta work. Something ‘bout my devil fruit and my bones or something. I don’t really get it. But it doesn’t matter! I mean, I can just rocket to places. And you too, right? You can run on water! That’s so _cool_!”

Brook looked at Luffy’s beaming grin for a long moment, and couldn’t stop the urge to smile back, even though he had no lips with which to do so.

And then he said, “May I join your crew?”

Luffy laughed like the best song Brook had ever heard. “Sure!”

**Author's Note:**

> sanji's part gave me a lot of trouble because he's the one whose backstory could like potentially be significantly altered by the addition of wings. also i started writing a thing about him and the vinsmokes too but it made me sad so i just scrapped it and made his part about him and zeff instead.
> 
> if you're looking for luffy's backstory it's in the first story in this series, [when i learn to fly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24096451)! he does not learn to fly (despite ace and sabo's best efforts).
> 
> story title from [against the wind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJRD1VkxmI) by bob seger
> 
> specific types of wings everybody has, cause only some of them are explicitly named in the text:  
> luffy: ~~dragon~~ demon wings (red)  
> zoro: golden eagle  
> nami: common/eurasian magpie (they like shiny things. also one of the smartest birds)  
> usopp: mockingbird (copy other birds)  
> sanji: secretarybird (they murder things with their feet)  
> robin: robin  
> franky: none, formerly pelican  
> brook: none, formerly nightingale (said be the bird with one of the prettiest songs)
> 
> kuina: rail  
> bellemere: osprey  
> nojiko: bluebird  
> kaya: red-crowned crane  
> kureha: african grey parrot  
> olvia: mourning dove  
> reiju: violet-backed starling  
> i couldn't make up my mind about zeff. additionally, she's not in this story, but you should all know vivi is a wood duck.
> 
> the next story in this series will probably be about law and the donquixotes!! and im also on tumblr @[oriigami](https://oriigami.tumblr.com/) so come chat with me there or ask questions if you want!


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